Chloe Baugh - Brand Ambassador
My names Chloe and I’m 20 years old. I am sharing my journey of living with Tourette’s syndrome, depression, anxiety and anorexia in the hope to help others in their recovery.
At 12 years old I was a patient in an inpatient facility for support with my illnesses. I found it really difficult to be separated from my family for long periods of time but I am thankful for the support I received from everyone at the time. As an inpatient I received a lot of support around meals, my relationship with food and my body image and made good progress, thanks to the staff. I then became an outpatient and I was lucky in that I had a really good experience with CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) in my community. CAMHS offered me several appointments a week at home and also intensive support when needed however when I reached 18 years old I was dropped by services due to missing one appointment.
I have been very fortunate in that my family and close friends continued supporting me and have really helped me in times of need. Things like helping me get out of the house, offering support around meal times and helping with my personal care when I was unable, really helped to aid my recovery. I also found that creating lists of the negative impact the illnesses had on me vs the life I wanted to live, helped me to fight my illnesses as well as using positive affirmations to help build my self-esteem.
I was later introduced to weightlifting and I use this to help me stay well as it improves my mood and has also changed my relationship with food. I never really understood mindfulness but I now feel like exercise is my form of mindfulness, it focuses my mind and helps to keep me calm.
Although there is still stigma around taking medication for mental health illnesses, I am not ashamed to say that I do take prescribed medication. I know that it helps keep me well and I look at it as if I had a physical health diagnosis and needed medication for that; to me there should be no difference.
I’m very passionate about reducing the stigma that surrounds mental illness and the brand YANA is an amazing way of working towards this and raising awareness on a large scale through fashion. To me this brand symbolises a change in the way we think about mental health and hope for the future that stigma will be no longer.
The biggest part of my recovery has come from learning to be honest with people, sharing my struggles and accepting that it’s ok not to be ok so to be representing a brand with that message is incredible.
‘This too shall pass’
- I always refer to this saying in tough times. I hope this quote can help you too.
